More on piercing the field of knowability

How long does "the present" last?

We’ve all experienced situations where we know someone is calling us before the phone rings, or that someone we’ve been thinking about is standing at the door before there is a knock on the door.

Is it possible that humans have sensory perceptions that feed us information about the “pre-present” with quiet signals directed through our subconscious? Would this be something like seeing lightning long before we hear it?

What Happens to the Present When it’s over?

After we experience the present, we are done with it. It’s over. So then what?

What is the duration of the “present?” Some of our more recent movies have been filmed at 48 frames per second. Do we experience the present at a rate of 48 “presents” per second, or is it faster than that?

What happens to the present when we have finished with it? Does it simply get discarded?

Is there some cosmic junkyard in another dimension where all of our “used” experiences go? A wasteland of former “presents?”

Every existing “present” is becoming displaced by the next “present.”

Since two “presents” cannot coexist, one volunteers to become the past? How does that work?

Does the past permanently disappear or is there still some record of it?

Requesting Help – Piercing the Field of Knowability

Reality is constantly unfolding, but is it possible that there is some sort of time delay between when it is formed and when our human senses are able to comprehend it. If so, many of today’s mysteries of science and physics could be explained.

As an example, the nature of gravity has been one of mankind’s greatest unsolved mysteries. So what if the forces of gravity were exerted in this ultra-brief period of time, prior to knowability, with the only thing remaining, once the present arrived, being the effects of gravity, not the measurable force itself.

So how can we create an experiment to test this hypothesis?

The first test needs to prove the existence of a “present” before we know about it, even if it’s only a fraction of a second before human knowability sets in.

The second test would be one to pierce the field so we can “know before we know.” How do we time-shift the present into the pre-present?

Final Thoughts

Yes, I realize you may consider this to be the delusional thinking of a madman.

But as we amp up our microscope in viewing how every moment of the present is transacted, how we shed these fleeting occurrences of the here and now, and take our next micro-step into the future, we begin to see far more questions than answers.

I will end with one more of Einstein’s thoughts, “The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and science.”

I think this one qualifies as beautifully mysterious.

That said, I’d love to hear your thoughts. Have I sincerely gone off the deep end this time, or is this something that deserves further study?

Thomas Frey is the executive director and senior futurist at the DaVinci Institute and currently Google’s top-rated futurist speaker. At the Institute, he has developed original research studies, enabling him to speak on unusual topics, translating trends into unique opportunities. Tom continually pushes the envelope of understanding, creating fascinating images of the world to come. His talks on futurist topics have captivated people ranging from high level of government officials to executives in Fortune 500 companies including NASA, IBM, AT&T, Hewlett-Packard, Unilever, GE, Blackmont Capital, Lucent Technologies, First Data, Boeing, Ford Motor Company, Qwest, Allied Signal, Hunter Douglas, Direct TV, Capital One, National Association of Federal Credit Unions, STAMATS, Bell Canada, American Chemical Society, Times of India, Leaders in Dubai, and many more. Before launching the DaVinci Institute, Tom spent 15 years at IBM as an engineer and designer where he received over 270 awards, more than any other IBM engineer.

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Readers Respond

We experience nothing in the present. The 500 milliseconds it takes for visual to translate through the brain makes everything we see at least that old. However, deja vu experiences are most likely one sphere of the brain receiving the signal before the other, then the second sphere re-tells the 1st sphere which then says back "Where have I seen this before?" By Not quite on 2013 06 07